General Motors has been awarded a $2.7 million grant to build and test prototypes of a material that could possibly turn exhaust heat into usable energy to power a vehicle's onboard accessories.

Known as Shape Memory Alloy, or SMA, the material usually comes in the form of delicate string wires that stretch and reform with the admission and exclusion of heat.

"When you heat up a stretched SMA wire, it shrinks back to its pre-stretched length, and when it cools back down it becomes less stiff and can revert to the original shape" said Jan Aase, director of GM's Vehicle Development Research Laboratory. "A loop of this wire could be used to drive an electric generator to charge a battery."

The technology is hoped to be implemented on hybrid and combustion engine powered vehicles in the near future. GM will work with Dynalloy, HRL Laboratories, and the Smart Materials Collaborative Research Lab at the University of Michigan to create the next-age material.

"We're taking advantage of a network of people that we've been working with for a number of years on shape memory alloys," Aase said. "And we have some novel approaches to make this high-risk, high return project successful."

SMA has been around for 30 years, Aese said in a prepared statement, but only now has the technology been small and advanced enough to implement in vehicles.

i feel like its unfair for big companies to get so much fucking government cushioning financially. Feds shouldn't be giving GM any more money until they at least show some kind of positive upturn. Sometimes, I wonder if everyone who's in charge are on the same page with regard to the financial well being of this nation.